AJUSD Campus blogs

Wanting to make this process clear to my student bloggers, I created a document explaining copyright, copyright infringement and Creative Commons.

May 9 - Mr. Salsich's Class (Connecticut, USA) May 14 - Mrs. Yollis' Class (California, USA) May 17 - Mrs. McKenzie's Class (New Zealand) May 22 - Mr. Avery's Class (Massachusetts, USA) May 25 - Mrs. Watson's Class (British Columbia, Canada) May 30 - Mrs. Morris and Miss Jordan's class (Australia)

we'll be taking part in a collaborative project called The Tale Trail. Classes will be joining together to write and illustrate a story through their blogs.

we'll be taking part in a collaborative project called The Tale Trail. Classes will be joining together to write and illustrate a story through their blogs.

Encouraging curiosity and the exploration of something new could help a student grow in so many ways

Think about your audience

Another element that is important for student bloggers to understand is that your blog is not only about you and what you like, but about your readers too. Readers = comments = interaction = learning and growth!

Gathering evidence for effectively teaching writing

The list of recommendations presented below is based on scientific studies of students in grades 4–12

Practices with the strongest effects are listed first.

Are you going to accept all comments?

Some comments you receive are actually spam – Nike shoes, handbags, essay dissertations etc Often these comments will have a link in them directing you to a website where they want you to buy something. Other spam comments often have facebook.com or google.com or yahoo.com in the email address. Sometimes these comments make sense but they will often have a spelling error and they usually have nothing to do with the post you have written. Make sure you don’t approve these type of comments but click  spam instead. Some people might leave a comment like ‘Wutsup?’ – this would go in the trash. Some students who don’t know about quality comments might say ‘This is a cool blog. Please visit my blog at ……’  This would also go in the trash

I do recommend having a class blog before moving on to student blogs. A class blog is the ideal avenue for the students to learn about the blogging process. Early in the year we always do a lot of work on quality commenting, creative commons and copyright, internet safety, netiquette, typing, writing styles and more.

To earn a blog the students have to… Write quality comments on our class blog on a regular basis. Reply to comments on our class blog regularly. Our class blog is a team effort. Show an interest in others’ blogs (eg. leave some comments on our blogging buddies’ blogs). Demonstrate an understanding of cyber safety and netiquette when writing blog comments and using the internet. Show a general enthusiasm for learning about blogging. Demonstrate support from family. Students will not be chosen for a blog without family support. This isn’t a clear-cut checklist, but more of a guide as to what we’re looking for.

The process I followed

Reading, responding, assessing and monitoring our students’ progress on their blog requires pedagogical commitment. It is a commitment to student learning and quality work, not a commitment to using a specific technology platform. My guiding questions for QUALITY blogging are: How do teachers recognize different levels of quality? How can assessment for student blogging look like?

Commenting is a great introduction to student writing on blogs. It does not require to plan and write an entire blog post

Comments motivate, provide feedback and advice, challenge our thoughts and views, make us reflect on what we’re learning.

1.  Become a better blog citizen

2.  Build your Personal Learning Network (PLN